Toil and Trouble
by She's a Star
Summary: When it is announced that there will be a Halloween Ball, James is sure that he'll finally be able to win Lily's heart. Meanwhile, Lily is sure that James is going to either land her in a mental hospital or drive her to homicide. Or possibly both.
1. An Opportunity Presents Itself

**Toil and Trouble**

_by__ She's a Star_

**Disclaimer:** Surprise! Harry Potter is J.K. Rowling's. Crazy, I know.

**Author's Note:** Darn me and my penchant for posting. This is going to be a chapter fic – a rather short chapter fic, but a chapter fic. So, yeah. You have my permission to send me angry (but _nice_ angry. I'm a sensitive soul) emails if I don't update for months and months, as I am aware of the fact that that sort of behaviour is a bit maddening.

Anyhow, onto the fic.

I haven't written much Marauder-era stuff, but I felt randomly compelled to after reading Miss Puppylove's absolutely wonderful R/S fics.

This shall have a L/J and R/S outcome, so . . . yep. If you don't like slash, then press the back button. Unless, of course, you are such a rabid fan of my fantabulous works that you're willing to compromise your fanfiction pairing beliefs all in the name of SHE'S A STAR!

. . . er.

I'm not mad. Honest.

**Chapter One**

            October had been, James Potter decided, entirely unsatisfactory thus far.

            Quidditch season had yet to begin, and he was bored out of his mind. Occasionally, he and Sirius would go out on the pitch in the evenings – his Chaser skills had to be honed somehow, after all – but beyond that, it seemed that excitement was nowhere to be found. Instead, there was homework. Lots of it.

            Being in seventh year, he determined, was vastly overrated. Yes, there was the glimmering sparkle of hope that was graduation, but to get there, it meant you had to survive the year first.

            James wasn't so sure he'd be able to manage that part.

            Not only that, but the fact that this was their last year at school also meant that it was his last year to convince Lily Evans that she was desperately in love with him. 'Cause she was, James had decided back in his fourth year. She just hadn't figured it out yet.

            And regardless of how hard he worked to attempt to prove it to her, she was helplessly daft about the entire matter.

            As a matter of fact, she seemed to be under the impression that she hated his guts.

            But that wouldn't stop James. Oh, no. Theirs was a great and everlasting love. He just had to wait for her to realize that.

            Problem was, it had been nearly five years, and he was getting a bit impatient.

            To say the least.

            And so when an announcement was made during their Monday morning Transfiguration lesson, he was overcome with joy that the opportunity had presented itself.

            "There will be a Halloween Ball this upcoming Saturday in addition to the annual feast," Professor McGonagall announced to the seventh year Gryffindors and Ravenclaws. "Professor Dumbledore feels that a bit of excitement is necessary after the-" she pursed her lips disapprovingly, "-mundane start to the school year."

            A chorus of excited chatter immediately rose in the classroom, but James paid no mind as Hestia Jones and Veronica Smelthley began to squeal delightedly and about three fourths of the females in the room immediately fixed hopeful stares on Sirius. Oh, no. He only had eyes for Lily, who was sitting next to Auriga Sinistra and – he couldn't believe it – talking about last night's homework assignment.

            She really was a bit mad.

            And damned if he didn't love her for it.

            She looked up and caught his eye; he thought for a fleeting moment that maybe he should look away, but then decided against it and instead ran a hand through his hair and grinned at her.

            In return, she gave him a sharp and exasperated look that he'd come to lovingly refer to as The Lily Evans Glare of Death, Destruction, and All Other Things Unpleasant.

            But James wasn't discouraged. Oh, no, not in the least.

            This was his opportunity. This time, Lily Evans' heart would be his.

            He was so lost in his inspired reverie that he didn't notice Sirius lean close to Remus and mutter, "He's never going to give it up, is he?"

            Remus shook his head. "It doesn't seem so."

            Sirius sighed regretfully. "Poor git."


	2. Diary Interlude: Lily

**Diary Interlude: Lily**

            Sometimes I'm quite sure that fate's against me. I mean, as if things weren't busy enough with school and Head Girl duties already this year, now McGonagall's announced that there's going to be a Halloween ball. And of course, we all know what this means—

            James Potter is going to harass me nonstop until I agree to go with him.

            Which, of course, I'm not going to do, which means it's just going to be yet another annoying disaster in manner of last year's New Year's Ball, the previous year's Yuletide Masquerade, and assorted Hogsmeade weekends since fourth year.

            Why won't it just go through his thick skull that I'm never, ever going to be interested in him? I can't stand the prat, and he just doesn't get it.

            I think he's going to drive me mad someday.

            And now he has this ball to aid him in it.

            Just _lovely_.


	3. AAAUGHHHH About Sums It Up

**Toil and Trouble**

_By She's a Star_

(My titles would be much more impressive if they were centered. Damn you and your general weirdness, MS Word.)

Gracias para los comentarios acerca de el cuento. Ustedes son muy magnifico, fantastico, etc. Llevo el queso. No me lleva.

**Chapter Two**

            "I'm asking Lily to the ball," James announced as soon as he, Sirius, Remus, and Peter stepped into their dormitory that evening.

            "No!" Sirius said, feigning shock. "Really??"

            "Amazing," Peter threw in.

            "Remarkable," added Remus, smirking slightly.

            "What do you think she'll say?" asked Sirius, gazing poetically into the distance. "I can just see it now – her red hair dancing like fire as she tosses it over her shoulder . . . green eyes sparkling . . . lips red and full as she replies in a tone like the sweetest serenade . . ." He paused dramatically. "'No way in hell, Potter.'"

            Remus and Peter laughed.

            "Shut up," James ordered, glaring. "She's going to say yes this time. I know it."

            "James, mate," said Sirius, "I'm telling you this solely for your own mental health and well-being: come off it, you git."

            James stared skeptically at him.

            "Okay," Sirius admitted, "I threw in the 'you git' part for fun."

            Rolling his eyes, James responded, "Thanks but no thanks, Padfoot. This time, it's going to be different."

            "How so?" Peter asked interestedly.

            "Lily'll slap him when she refuses?" Sirius offered innocently, then after a moment of thought added, "No, wait, she's done that already."

            Peter laughed, looking as though he was savoring the memory. "In front of the entire Great Hall at breakfast . . ."

            "All right, you two are useless prats," James decided, glaring, and then turned to Remus. "Moony? You're on my side, right?"

            "Well," Remus said, a bit uneasily, "she _does_ seem to hate you a bit less this year, but I'm not sure that you should . . ."

            "Face it, Potter," Sirius said brightly, throwing an arm over Remus' shoulders, "We've got you, three to one. There's no way."

            "Some friends you are," James grumbled. He glared, apparently furious beyond all reason, for approximately fifteen seconds before sinking down onto his four-poster and saying easily, "So, who're you all asking?"

            "No one," Peter said glumly, sitting down on his own bed.

            "Same here," said Sirius.

            Everyone stared at him in surprise.

            "What??" Sirius asked. "I've simply decided that I will let the ladies come to me this time around."

            "Really?" asked Remus mildly. "No snogging with Hestia Jones in the rose bushes this time around?"

            Sirius shrugged. "To tell you the truth, I've gotten quite sick of her."

            "You get 'quite sick' of everyone after approximately two weeks," James reminded him.

            "At least I haven't been madly in love with the same girl since I was thirteen without her ever paying me the time of day," Sirius shot back. "It's really getting old, you kno—"

            "Defense Against the Dark Arts was interesting today," Remus cut in pointedly.

            James and Sirius glanced over at him, and after a moment both took the hint that he was attempting to extinguish the bickering before it progressed into an all-out wizard's duel.

            "Wasn't bad," James agreed after a moment.

            "There's been worse," Sirius said, nodding.

            And they fell into a boring but thankfully non-violent discussion concerning school work.

*

            Perhaps Lily was paranoid, but she didn't quite think so. After all, she had every excuse to believe that James Potter was stalking her.

            Running into him exactly fifty six times in one day just couldn't all be blamed on coincidence. Or if it could, Lily decided that coincidence might be almost as big of a prat as James was.

            When time fifty-seven rolled around, as she stepped out of the girls' bathroom and he just happened to be standing approximately five feet away, she felt her temper boiling over.

            All right. That was enough.

            She fixed the most menacing glare she could manage onto her face (surprisingly, it wasn't a hard task) and stormed over to him. "Okay, Potter."

            "Okay what?" he asked innocently, grinning at her and running his hand through his hair. She really hated it when he did that. Part of her was tempted to tell him that he looked like a complete idiot, but then he'd know that she actually paid attention to his hair, and it might give him ideas. The wrong kinds of ideas.

            "Touched as I am that you want to follow me around all of the time, stop or I'll curse you to next Tuesday and back."

            "Following? But . . . I'm not following you!"

            She wondered if it was humanly possible to be less convincing.

            Groaning in frustration, she snapped, "Why don't you just get it over with?"

            "Get what over with?" he asked earnestly.

            _AAAUGHHHH._

            "Ask me to the ball already!" she practically shrieked. "Just do it before I go completely mad!"

            His eyes immediately lit up. "Does this mean you're going to say yes??"

            She felt nearly overcome with the urge to slap him, in manner of herself in sixth year after he'd thrown his arms around her coming down the stairs and then attempted to convince her that he had tripped.

            Unfortunately, Professor Flitwick was standing about twenty feet away, and she felt that her Head Girl position might be jeopardized slightly were she to be caught attempting to beat an "innocent" student to a bloody pulp. Ugh. Such was life.

            "You make me insane, Potter," she informed him, quite brusquely, before spinning on her heel and making her way toward the Great Hall.

            " . . . Insane with love?" James asked hopefully from behind her.

            Lily didn't even bother to check to see if anyone was looking as she let out a quiet shriek of fury and kicked the wall.


	4. Diary Interlude: James

**Diary Interlude: James**

            This might be a little more difficult than I'd counted on.


	5. More Frightening than Flobberworms

**Toil and Trouble**

_By She's a Star_

**Author's Note:** Thank you ever so much to everyone that's reviewed thus far. I'm glad you're enjoying it. J (Smiley. SMILEY!) And just to get slightly disclaimer-y with it, I snagged one of Sirius's lines in this chapter from Jack Bristow on Alias.

**Chapter Three**

            Sirius was a little concerned about James.

            He would never admit it, of course, as it was strictly against the Marauder code of conduct to touch upon any subject that wasn't cool and manly, lest it somehow get spread around the school. With a shudder, he recalled the last time it had happened, and Professor McGonagall had made a rather wry reference to his illogical fear of flobberworms in front of the entire Transfiguration class.

            "'Don't worry, Mr. Black,'" Sirius muttered bitterly under his breath. "'I assure you that the flobberworms will not rise from the table and attack you while you are attempting to turn them into toothpicks.'"

             Wench. Sirius didn't see why it was so amusing, anyhow. The way he saw it, something without a visible head so to speak of was a lot more ominous than everyone else seemed to think.

            And then, of course, he'd gotten the angry letter from his mother – never a Howler, no, because the Black family name certainly could not be publicly marred – that went on for sixteen and a half pages expressing her disgust at his jeopardizing the honour of their bloodline.

            He didn't know why she bothered, really. He'd gotten the hell out of Grimmauld Place as soon as possible, and yet she still felt compelled to remind him of what a disappointment he was.

            Not that he cared. To hell with them all, anyway. There were more pressing issues at hand.

            Namely James and the way he was about to make a complete fool of himself.

            Now, Sirius Black was exceptionally skilled in many areas, including the charming of the opposite sex. Sure, he'd exercised those skills quite frequently in the name of sneaking up to the Astronomy Tower to snog, but he figured he could also use them for the common good. Which, at the moment, was clearly talking to Lily. Attempting to reason with her. Proving to her that James wasn't such a bad guy after all.

            Of course, Lily didn't like him all that much either, but he was sure that could be changed.

            So he dutifully remained in the common room while James, Peter, and Remus ventured off to breakfast. Lily was sitting in front of the fire, absolutely entranced in a book to the point where she'd apparently forgotten about the very existence of that lovely thing called food.

            Sirius really wondered sometimes why James liked her so much. Personally, he thought her to be a bit unhinged.

            He smoothed his hair and fixed his most magnetizing grin on his face before sauntering over. She looked up a moment before he reached the couch to sit down, giving her plenty of time to revel in the nonchalant sexiness of the Sirius Black saunter. Excellent.

            "Lily," he said smoothly.

            She stared back at him unsurely for a moment before replying, "Sirius."

            He adjusted his grin a bit, converting it into a slightly sheepish half-smile. She just looked blankly at him – not the faintest sign of even a tiny swoon.

            Yep, the chick was definitely crackers.

            "What're you reading?" he asked, deciding to opt for a bit of casual conversation.

            "Pride and Prejudice," she replied, somewhat dully. She seemed almost . . . bored; as though she'd rather he just went away. This was truly bizarre.

            "You know," he said, not about to give up, "that's just what I wanted to talk to you about."

            "Jane Austen?" Lily asked doubtfully, raising an eyebrow at him.

            He chuckled. "Oh, Lils, you put even Derwent Shimpling to shame."

            Which she didn't, of course. He really doubted it was possible for anyone to put Shimpling to shame, as no one could beat his classic "Three hags and a Chudley Canons Beater walked into a bar" routine, but it didn't hurt to flatter her senselessly for a bit.

"Who?"

            Sirius resisted the urge to gasp in horror.

            _Who?_

            "Comedian," Sirius said, attempting to remain calm. "Greatest mind for humor in the entire world." Lily continued to stare. "Y'know . . . he's on a Chocolate Frog card?"

            "Sirius," Lily said, very calmly, "if you have some strange and sudden desire to make me into your newest snogging buddy, then I'm just going to stop you right here and spare you some of the humiliation. Be aware that James will probably kill you if he ever finds out about this." She paused for a moment, and then threw in, rather viciously, "And _don't_ call me Lils."

            Sirius allowed himself a moment to recover from the shock of this statement before promptly deciding that his charm was _clearly_ wasted on this utterly bizarre creature. "I don't want to _snog_ you," he hissed, scandalized. "I want to talk to you about James."

            "I thought you wanted to talk to me about Jane Austen," Lily said composedly.

            _Hitting girls is not allowed. Violence is bad. Hitting girls is not allowed. Violence is bad. Hitting girls is not allowed . . ._

            "No," Sirius said, and gave her a very pained smile. "I meant pride. And prejudice. Both of which you direct unjustly at my poor and misfortunate friend."

            Lily snorted. "Unjustly? He _stalks me_."

            "He does not sta . . ." Sirius took a moment to consider this. "Okay," he capitulated, nodding, "it could be considered stalking. But it's an act of love!"

            He chanced to break out the charming grin again.

            "Go to the ball with him," he cajoled.

            Lily fixed him with a very skeptical look.

            ". . . Please?" Sirius threw in politely.

            "I kicked a wall yesterday," Lily said.

            Um.

            "How nice for you?" offered Sirius.

            "I'm not the type that usually goes around kicking walls, you know," Lily continued. Sirius thought he caught a hint of hysteria in her tone. Hmm. "I'm sensible, and hard-working, and generally not one to do things like that. I'm Head Girl."

            "And James is Head Boy!" Sirius felt compelled to state. "Is that destiny or what?"

            All of a sudden, Lily was staring at him in a way she'd never stared before. He wouldn't have been surprised if she leaned over and punched him – hell, maybe even strangled him – at any given moment.

            "Doesn't that look belong to James and James alone?" Sirius inquired meekly.

            "He's ridiculous," Lily said, her voice much higher than usual. "He's obnoxious and conceited and he has a frightening fixation on his hair, which doesn't need to be sticking up all the time, really, but does he know that, _no_, he just runs his fingers through it constantly like there's no tomorrow, and he doesn't even bother to call me by my first name and stares at me ALL. THE. BLOODY. TIME. and now that's not enough, oh no, his friends are bugging me too, and I suppose you all think I'm some evil harpy because I won't give a certain someone who makes my life hell the time of day, and well, isn't that grand, and let me tell you something, Sirius Black, I would rather call up the bloke who did the decapitation job on Nearly Headless Nick, hand him an ax, and tell him to have the hell at it than go to the ball with James Potter." She took a deep breath before smiling pleasantly at him. "Questions?"

            "You know," Sirius said thoughtfully. "I think that about covers it."

            "Good," she said, then picked up her book and resumed reading.

            As Sirius fled from the common room for dear life, he decided that perhaps he had stumbled upon something even more frightening than flobberworms.

*

            When Sirius arrived at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, he looked oddly like he'd been terrified within an inch of his life. Remus frowned.

            "What happened?" he inquired, pushing the pitcher of pumpkin juice in Sirius' direction.

            Sirius took the time to pour himself a goblet of it and chug down around half before stopping, running a hand through his hair, and saying to James, quite matter-of-factly, "You know, mate, I reckon it's never going to work. I'd give up on Lily Evans if I were you."

            James looked scandalized. "What? Give up on Evans? Why would I do that?"

            Sirius sighed, still looking a bit borderline hysterical. "Ah, let me count the ways. One, she's mad. Two, she loathes you. Three, she refused to respond to my advances. Four—"

            "Wait a minute," James said, his eyes immediately alight with fury. "What was that?"

            "Four," Sirius replied, oblivious. "It can usually be found between three and five. I have caught it attempting to hide in between two hundred and sixty-four and two hundred and sixty-five, though. Sneaky little bastard."

            Divination was by no means his best subject, but Remus felt rather sure that Padfoot would be suffering some sort of grievous James-induced injury in the near future.

            "I'm not talking about four," James said crossly. "I'm talking about you advancing on Evans."

            Sirius seemed to realize his error. "Ah," he said. "Right."

            "What the hell d'you think you're playing at?" James demanded. "You _know_ that Lily—"

            "I was doing it to help you out!" Sirius argued. "I figured I could charm her into going to the ball with you!"

            James paused to process this information. "Really?"

            Sirius nodded.

            " . . . And?"

            "She hates you, mate," Sirius said gravely.

            "Well, yeah," James said, clearly unaffected by this. "She _thinks_ that, but—"

            "No," cut in Sirius. "She honestly, purely hates you."

            James looked thoroughly dejected.

            And it was then that an idea occurred to Remus.


End file.
